What you’re about to find below is something the political parties are sorely lacking at: actually preparing candidates for what happens after they win.
There’s a lot to consider and even more to know. A newly elected official — especially someone stepping into their first public office — walks into a thick fog of questions, obligations, landmines, and assumptions no one bothers to explain. Campaigns talk about winning. Almost no one talks about surviving the first ninety days with your integrity, your privacy, and your family’s peace of mind intact.
Because we’ve spent years at the intersection of local politics and technology, we were asked for practical suggestions. We looked around. We found almost nothing of real merit.
So, in the spirit of General George Washington’s insistence on merit over empty loyalty, here is a brief but foundational stepping-off point: how to keep yourself out of hot water once the votes are counted and the oath is taken.
This primer — Protecting the Private Sphere — focuses on the electronic and communications side of the job that almost no one prepares you for:
• How to keep personal conversations with family, friends, and your own team from becoming public records
• How to draw a clean line between official business and private life under Florida’s public records and Sunshine laws
• How to reduce the risk that your immediate and extended family become targets in a heated political climate
It’s not legal advice. It’s a practical, field-tested starting framework written for people who just won and now have to govern without walking into avoidable traps.
Download it. Read it. Adapt it. Then go do the job the right way.
— TalkAboutMartin.com